Upgrading My E521 to Windows 7

Question

Hi: I have a Dell Dimension E 521 and I am running Windows XP SP3.I want to upgrade this PC to Windows 7 Home Premium as MS support

for XP will be ending next year. I would like to find out from anyone that has an E 521 if upgrading to windows 7 home premium, if the computer will run smoothly or will it be slow? I currently have 2 slots of 1GB of ram in each and will put the same amount in to slots 3 and 4 giving me a total of 4GB.Any information or help will be appreciated.

Thank You.

ieee488 · Accepted Answer

120gb SSDs periodically come on sale at Newegg for $80 and the same holds for Windows 7 Home Premium.

$300 + tax and shipping PCs tend to leave a lot to be desired.

And a 6-year PC is that much better? I still maintain that a current PC's hardware is going to be better than a PC from 6 years ago.

At the very least, I would spend the upgrade money on hardware worthy of the $$.

ieee488 · Accepted Answer

You may get a special discount. Either way, it's cheaper to upgrade an existing machine to Windows 7 than buy a whole new PC. One has to weigh value received for money spent.

rdunnill · Accepted Answer

Windows 7 Home Premium is on sale at Newegg for $80 with free shipping. Use promo code EMCYTZT4775 at checkout. This deal is only available for 48 hours.

rdunnill · Answer

I suggest adding an SSD and installing Windows 7 on that for a dual boot. You can continue to use the existing spindle drive for storage. 2gb of RAM is enough for Windows 7 x64.

ieee488 · Answer

SSD drives are not cheap. 120GB =~ $100

Windows 7 license will cost you $100.

Only you can decide whether throwing $200 on an old PC such as this is worthwhile compared to spending $275 for a brand new one.

Me personally, I'd be installing Linux come April 2014, and buying a new desktop PC.

rdunnill · Answer

120gb SSDs periodically come on sale at Newegg for $80 and the same holds for Windows 7 Home Premium. $300 + tax and shipping PCs tend to leave a lot to be desired.

rdunnill · Answer

An E521 with an SSD boot drive will be quite responsive, while a cheapie Celeron with a spindle drive won't be all that fast. Furthermore, the SSD can be moved into a new PC the OP might get in the future. Finally, new PCs come with Windows 8 or 8.1 (and no reinstall disc) and not everyone likes Windows 8.X and its clunky UI.

My relative (who has a six-figure income) was very pleased at the results of upgrading an E510 (older than the E521) to an SSD and Windows 7. Said relative had insisted on Windows 7, too, despite the higher cost.

MacGyver3 · Answer

Hi after reading all the posts to my questions here is what I came up with.I am not interested in windows 8/8.1 heard too many negative things about them.

Checked SSD prices are way to high right now. I was thinking since I use Windows 7 home premium on my laptop I am already familiar with the OS plus

my all in 1 printer,camera etc will be compatible.Now the question is whether to get Windows 7 Home Premium full version while it is still available and install it on this current pc or buy another pc with a higher pentium Intel or AMD and more Ram.What are your opinions now that you know where I am leaning toward? I use this PC for surfing the web,E Mail,Facebook(games only on FB) and downloading pictures from my camera and then putting them on cd/dvd or flash drive.There was one post that said you can get a pc for $299 where? I saw a major office supply chain have a Dell with 8GB and an Intel® Core™ i3-3240 Processor 3.4GHz 3MB Cache for around $400.Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

rdunnill · Answer

You can buy Windows 7 Home Premium for $80 on sale at Newegg. (Subscribe to their newsletters.)

You don't need a new PC for the purposes you describe and note that if you do buy a new PC, it will have 8 or 8.1.

ieee488 · Answer

There was one post that said you can get a pc for $299 where?

Dell.com Inspiron 660s $299.99 with Windows 8; $379.99 with Windows 7

There are plenty of brand new desktops Dell or otherwise to be found for $299. Almost all will come with Windows 8.

rdunnill · Answer

Add tax (and possibly shipping) to the $300. Looking on the Dell site, the cheapest 660s is $399 plus tax and it is imaged with Windows 8. No reinstall DVD is bundled, either, if something goes wrong.

rdunnill · Answer

You may get a special discount. Either way, it's cheaper to upgrade an existing machine to Windows 7 than buy a whole new PC.

MacGyver3 · Answer

Thanks for the info about Windows 7 on sale at Newegg,they change prices quickly there.

I will go with updating this E521 to Windows 7 home premium.And when M$ comes out with another version of Windows

that is smoother running then 8.0/8.1 I:ll go with that.Seems Desk Tops maybe phasing out. Thank you all for

help and input.

rdunnill · Answer

That's a good choice. The E521 was designed for Vista and Windows 7 is an improved Vista. It's also the new XP, and it probably will be supported for close to a decade. Newegg puts Windows 7 on sale frequently, about once a week. Sometimes it's the Professional version, other times it's Home Premium.

Note that an older PC booting from an SSD can easily be more responsive than a new design booting from a spindle drive. The Core i7 I use at the office is a great example: it takes ages to boot up and load all the services, and IO-intensive operations will really bog it down. As my old operating systems theory instructor said, if the hard drive thrashes too much, throughput even on a high-end machine will drop to the level of a Dick Tracy watch.

Desktops will keep a place, even if their popularity declines. There are things that desktops can do that laptops, tablets and notebooks can't.

Locked Topics – Desktops General

Upgrading My E521 to Windows 7

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